DO you usually pay much attention to the nutrition facts on packages of food and drinks? Two students, Anna Devathasan and Jenny Suo, in New Zealand did. They also discovered a lie about a popular local drink.

The science experiment by the two 17-year-old girls showed that theblackcurrant(黑醋栗) drink, Ribena, contained almost no vitamin C. However, its maker, the world's second-largest food and drug company GlaxoSmithKline had madeclaims(宣称) to the contrary in their ads.

The students, then 14, decided to test the vitamin C levels of their favorite juices, including Ribena and Just Juice for a school project.

Theycalculated(计算) that each 100 milliliters of Ribena contained about 22 milligrams of vitamin C.

Just Juice products contained levels of about 72 milligrams.

Thefigure(数字) for Ribena seemed too low because the company hadpromoted(推销) the product by saying that blackcurrants had four times the vitamin C of oranges.

"We thought we must have made a mistake," the girls said.

The pair got shortshrift(不被理会) when they sent their results in a letter to GlaxoSmithKline, so they telephoned the company.

"They didn't even really answer our questions. They just said it's the blackcurrants that have it, then they hung up," Jenny said.

Finally the pair took their findings to theCommerce Commission(商委会).

In court (法庭) last month, the company admitted (承认) that its ads might have left consumers with wrong impression about the health benefits of Ribena. It wasfined(罚款) a total of 227,500 New Zealand dollars (1.27 million yuan).

"It's completely unbelievable," Jenny said. "It's pretty crazy when you realize how much power you can have as a kid."

Commerce Commission chairwoman Paula Rebstock praised the teenagers and called them a "trueinspiration(启发) to everyone at the commission."